Darcy Does Deification
by Yours Hopefully
Summary: In which Darcy is burdened with a glorious purpose in Loki's redemption – at least, that's what Frigga keeps telling her. A trying tale of tasers, temptations, trials, tricks and terribly bastardized Norse mythology.
1. Delegation

_I own nothing - all rights to their respective owners._

**Delegation**

How Thor managed to court a woman who kept such slovenly louts for underlings was beyond Loki's ken. A late riser, she was practically nocturnal in nature and highly reliant on the technology most Midgardians wired themselves to by choice. He'd been monitoring the area for his brother's lady love for the last few days, but no sign was to be seen of the woman in question save for the unlisted call to her assistant. Even those were fairly sporadic.

The lass who'd managed to hold together Doctor Foster's labs in this arid desert was barely out of her adolescence, but remained very meticulous with the work she picked up. Otherwise, completely hopeless. Loki had never laid eyes on someone who could spend a whole day in their sleeping garments, but she'd yet to put on her normal attire after the second day of his observations.

Loki took one last look at the labs and the girl slumped over the laptop muttering nonsense about "quasars" and "credit hours" before deciding that this avenue was not one up for much perusal…if he did not want to pull out his hair by the roots in frustration. Some things were just not worth the effort expended.

* * *

Jane had a sort of "fuck them and the horse they rode in on" mentality about S.H.I.E.L.D. after Puente Antiguo. But even Jane had her weaker moments. MIB incarnate came rolling in earlier in the week to dangle a bit of shiny in front of her boss in the form of the University of Tromsø's observatory up in Skibotn. _Literally_ the ass end of civilization.

"This is weirdly suspicious, don't you think?" Darcy asked her boss one lazy morning – they'd set Skype up to just continually stream around the clock while Jane kept vigil on one side of the world, Darcy the other.

Jane took a while to reply – buried under star charts and wedged against a bulky spectrophotometer she was probably, possibly, most likely using to take measurements and readings of some freaky space metal. Building rainbow bridges into other galaxies wasn't exactly something solely relegated to astrophysics…or so Jane had snipped. Jane grunted – yep, _grunted_ in reply with that slight little inflection Darcy had learned to identify as agreement.

"I mean, first they send you off to the land of reindeer and the former _alien Viking _stomping grounds to stick your nose up into the intergalactic craw of the universe for no particular reason – it's not like we've been totally courteous with They Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. You're totally the only person in your field qualified to work on this shit, granted, but _why_ do they want you to advance your research and invest in something that might bring another two ton suit of armor stomping in. Not exactly pro governing, but stupider shit has happened. Jane – Jane? JANE," Darcy barked, startling the tiny genius on the screen. It just made her go all cross eyed, which Darcy found endearing, before she slanted a look in her direction.

"I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Darcy. Stupid saying – true fact. I've been on the waiting list for months for Kitt Peak _and _Apache Point, and at this point I think it's S.H.I.E.L.D. just being utter dicks about stretching the list with their government black bag threats against all the southwestern observatories, which are probably the _best_ options for data gathering and plotting theoretical trajectories considering there's absolutely near zero light pollution in the area around them _and_ they're close enough to the original drop site."

Darcy, for once, didn't shut off her brain after Jane rambled off into science speak. She nodded, made the appropriate noises of agreement and understanding, and pursed her lips by the end of what was Jane Foster's longest sentence to her in nearly three days. A tapping came at the door on Darcy's end. The figure had turned back around to observe the empty street, but Darcy definitely saw some couture threads and some killer pumps on the woman.

"Uh. Fuck. I'll call you back, Jane."

Jane nodded, muttering to herself as she dived back into the gopher hole of research quite literally. Her boss _waded_ into the piles of charts as Darcy terminated the call, pinched some color into her cheeks, and motioned for the woman to come in with a sharp whistle.

"Enter at your own risk – mind the stains, and don't freak. It's just oil."

The lady sidestepped Mystery Stain Six, as it was dubbed. Didn't even scrunch her nose at the smell.

"I'm used to the whole 'lair of the scientist' sort of deal," smiled the redhead, extending one slim, perfect hand towards Darcy as she stood. She knew she should've washed up after recalibrating Jane's friggin' machines, but did a subtle hand wipe on the sleeve of her hoodie before grasping the other woman's hand in a firm shake.

"Darcy Lewis – lab slave and de facto overseer of Doctor Foster's place until she's back from Nowhereland."

"It's a pleasure, Miss Lewis – Virginia Potts. Just call me Pepper."

It took Darcy under a nanosecond to formulate a full response. "Holy fuck, are you serious?"

"As a heart attack," the redhead replied, showing off a set of teeth you only saw in fucking _commercials_ for dental hygiene. She could front Crest's marketing campaign with a single smile.

"I did a paper on you – the whole corporate raider and cutthroat, kickass personal assistant cum CEO vibe heading the world's largest conglomerate of a business is sort of great material for an A grade." Pepper Potts actually looked pretty damned pleased about Darcy's admission. Even her face felt like it was heating up in flames as the proverbial word vomit spewed out. No brain to mouth filter in these situations.

"So I take it you're here not representing Goonsquad Limited?" Darcy squinted, pointing outside towards the pretty obvious SUV parked about a block away from the lab in plain sight.

"No, but I do keep up with a few agents," Pepper admitted, her smile nothing but congenial as she took in the ramshackle equipment, glitch computer screens flashing up error codes every five seconds, and crusted plates of meals long past. Darcy was mentally kicking herself for slacking in the housekeeping department, but how the fuck should she expect the CEO of a megacorporation to come knocking during the lunch hour in the ass end of _New Mexico_?

Gathering up what little professionalism she had left, which wasn't much to begin with, Darcy offered her the least squeaky wheeled chair, dusting the Pop-Tart crumbs off. Pepper Potts folded herself into the chair and crossed legs that went on for like, miles. Either she was developing a major girl crush or Darcy was in severe, green tinted envy. How much more graceful could you get than Pepper Potts?

"So, cutting to the chase, since the flight is leaving later this afternoon and I wanted to give you time to think it over – come to think of it, got any good spots for lunch? My treat."

_Woah. _

Darcy blinked the haze off and nodded her "okay" rather than trusting her voice before shuffling to her purse, autopilot flicking on in her brain while the internal screaming glee in her head drowned everything else out. "Diner food cool with you?"

"Perfect."

She locked up shop while Pepper waited out front, enjoying the cool weather of spring eddying with the glaring sun.

"New Mexico gets it lucky. Only the mountains get the major snowfall, and even that is _nothing_ compared to the frozen hell I grew up in," Darcy assured Pepper, trying to keep pace with the taller woman's stride as they made their way up Main Street.

"I was born in New Haven – believe me when I say that I know how cold it can get."

"Pfft. Try Concord in the middle of January on for size. Shit will freeze _vodka_ on contact."

Pepper had a pleasant look of surprise. They navigated their way into the small diner, Darcy having a moment of nostalgia over the exact spot where Thor had smashed his coffee cup. Picking a spot by the windows was a reflexive gesture. Izzy came around to grab their drink orders – coffee for her, iced water for Pepper – before waddling off. Pepper turned that high beam focus back on Darcy and asked, "New Englander?"

"Born and bred."

Izzy was back with their drinks, Darcy advising Pepper to try the quiche.

"Then consider this a meeting of the minds over how no one has any idea of what cold is until they live in our states in their formative years." Pepper raised her glass and Darcy clinked, the plastic letting out a dull sound as the surfaces met. Appropriate toasting done and Darcy very sure that Pepper Potts should be crowned Miss Universe for sheer cool factor, they tucked in to a late, late brunch and swapped school stories over their alma maters, their respective wacko geniuses they herded around, and the yet-to-be-revealed reason for Pepper Potts even descending from the Mount Olympus (aka L.A.) to come out here looking for _her_ specifically.

"Mr. Stark has been interested in getting Dr. Foster on board with research and development, but all details of her contract are completely confidential. We noticed that she's hired you straight out of school and were wondering why you chose to stay on?"

Darcy kicked back to chew on the question for a moment. "I believe in her research?" It sounded awkward and more of a tentative question than an answer.

It was the right answer. Pepper's eyes crinkled at the corners. "I can relate. You did take a bit of a risk. But I don't see it paying all that much."

"Eh," Darcy grimaced. The pay was pretty shitty, but it's not like she was complaining. Jane worked her ass off doing her own thing, regardless of any naysayers. Darcy respected that enough to be the only constant fixture in her boss's crazy life. That meant sticking through the shitty parts as well as the good and not running for financial cover in the form of a cushy day job back on the east coast.

"Graduated with honors from Culver – changed three times for your major?" Pepper smiled up from the screen of her phone. It was a state of the art piece that looked like it could run subroutines on Scud missiles.

When it came time for any fresh faced graduate out of Culver to drop their résumé on a future employer, they were assured by the school that their academic pedigree alone would set them above the other peons in the workforce. Culver would piggyback you to greatness.

Darcy Lewis thought that was a crock of bullshit up until she was sitting in front of Pepper Potts (who looked about as fresh faced and pretty as the covers of _Time _and _Forbes_ made her out to be) for an impromptu job interview.

It was either greatness recognizing potential greatness in the lesser mortal Darcy considered herself to be compared to Virginia 'I run an enterprise the size of a small country' Potts or it was a handout. Jane had grown too attached to the notion of "do it yourself" over the months of Darcy's interning and continued tenure (she was a pretty badass PA, not to toot her own horn or anything), had subsequently refused all S.H.I.E.L.D. annexing attempts, preferring to eke out a living through _SCIENCE_, low budget equipment jerry-rigged from salvaged, secondhand shit.

"So are you looking to hire me along with Jane? Is this having anything to do with the suits trying to buy out Jane and make me sign a nondisclosure agreement fifty pages thick?"

"I don't believe I'm at liberty to discuss that," Pepper said with a touch of caution. At Darcy's hiked up eyebrow, she managed a quick "yet".

"Alright, so let's say hypothetically speaking I _do _know that They Who Shall Not Be Named is up to something."

"Then hypothetically speaking-" Pepper started, cut off by the entry of one beefy guy stuffed into a suit like sausage is to a casing. Darcy did a full pivot in her chair, nursing her usual sludge of coffee to squint over the mug's rim.

"Miss Potts," wheezed Beefy after he'd gotten within range of their table, "we've got a problem."

The place was dead and Izzy was in the back, so Pepper left a crisp fifty on the table before calmly leading Beefy – who'd intro'd himself as one _Happy Hogan _to Darcy's expression of disbelief – through an explanation.

"Most of downtown is a disaster area – they're evacuating most of the boroughs and there's a…hole hovering over Manhattan." Happy laid on a thick accent that was either purely Brooklyn or one weird sounding Bronx variation. Darcy hadn't been to New York in years.

Pepper just motioned her along, Darcy following into the parked rental Hogan had squealed in with. They were at the airstrip a mile outside of town soon, boarding a lear with the Stark logo emblazoned on the siding. Introductions were made again while Happy rattled off more factoids over some incident occurring in Manhattan, Darcy's sense of "Oh Shit" mounting by the second. Stark's CFO, Blake Ives shook her hand before seating himself while Yvonne Eames from H.R. waved her hello from the back of the cabin.

It didn't hit home until Darcy turned to get a look at the screen running the live newsfeed from New York. That made a believer out of her.

"Mind if I hitch a ride?" her voice grated out, Pepper's silent nod winning her a seat on the short trip out, Jane and the lab forgotten as Happy started the flight check.

Darcy excused herself, locking herself into the lavatory to dial up the first number that came to mind.

"Ben?" she said, and her voice sounded way too shrill and scared to be coming out of her mouth.

"Darce?" replied her brother, a wall of sound blaring through the speaker after his voice echoed over the line. She nearly collapsed against the lavatory wall in relief. It was the same shit she had to deal with when she was just a kid, staring at the television in the living room while the towers came down. Ben had been working as a junior associate in the firm's Manhattan offices for a year.

He'd missed the morning commuter ferry from Staten by a couple of minutes. Coffee spill on his suit kind of delay. The first plane had slammed into his office in the North Tower at 8:46 A.M. It had been about three hours of agony until he'd managed to phone the house and tell the family he'd been late getting out of the door.

"Jessica and Grant?"

"Safe – but I'm not so sure about Jen," he replied in a flat, dead tone. Darcy cringed.

"She probably just has too much going on. Are her offices still in downtown?"

"Yeah. But she won't pick up and the kids are getting anxious."

"Get off the island. The government is probably staging rescue and recovery teams. I'm on a flight out already."

She spent five minutes arguing with Ben about the practicality of flying into a warzone, answering his questions about who the fuck was flying her out on a lear, and summoning up some appropriate comments about his questions directed at her meds and how often Darcy dosed herself because she was acting _insane_.

"Love you, love the kids – be safe." She hung up on her brother's shouting and turned off the cell, sinking down onto the lid of the toilet – ceramic. Who owned a plane with ceramic bath fixtures? Tony Stark, obviously. She decompressed for a good half hour during takeoff with some in and out breathing, summoning up the willpower to de-jellify her legs and walk out of the lavatory.

The view on the flatscreen was something that made her want to crawl back into the lav. She grew a bit of a backbone and shuffled past a tense Yvonne clutching her portfolio in one hand like a lifeline, hypnotized by the newsfeed.

An obnoxious hum was in Darcy's ear. The jet had a fuckton of noise going on outside and in it for such a tense silence. Until the hamster on the wheel in Darcy's brain revved back up, she didn't register the obnoxious hum as Pepper's StarkPhone _vibrating_ until she looked at the thing. It was in danger of slipping off the interior ledge until she reached over to still it. The face flashing up on the screen gave her the kick she needed to snap out of the shocked trance the entire plane seemed to be locked in.

"Pepper," she croaked, jumping out of her seat to practically shove the phone under the other woman's nose. Pepper took a moment to register the interruption, her eyes focusing on Tony Stark's face before she let out a noise bordering the line between a shout and a scream.

She snatched the phone from Darcy, tapping furiously at the "accept".

"Tony? Tony!" Pepper shouted into the phone, lifting it away to look at the screen when no reply came out of the speaker. The screen had cleared. The line was dead the moment she'd picked up.

Darcy spent the remainder of the flight perched on the armrest of Pepper's chair, eyes fixed on the scene as it showed Iron Man's subsequent rise into the fucking _vortex_ that'd formed over Manhattan and was spitting out things only dreamed of in a SciFi freak's wildest dream with what looked like a god damn missile in hand, his fall from the vortex as it zipped itself shut, and what looked like a _flying_ green behemoth that she'd seen choppy news footage of over the years hurtling itself at Iron Man before the camera lost track from the vantage point in the news chopper.

Pepper was rapid firing orders to Yvonne and Blake over her shoulder, both picking up their phones to start firing off orders to their underlings. Darcy quietly went to the back, taking a much needed moment to gather herself on this most fucked up and strangest of days. Returning with a glass of water which was forced into Pepper's slack fingers, she set about reviving her into some state of coherency after Pepper came down from the adrenaline high and began to choke up.

Fuck it. She'd known the woman for under two hours. It was worth a shot. Darcy gently squeezed her into a hug, tucking the CEO's head against her shoulder as Pepper gave herself over to a bit of a rant directed at Tony Stark's self-destructive, selfless heroism and how "it wasn't fair". A few threats to Anthony Edward Stark's life if he _was _still alive were made into the musty fabric of Darcy's worn Culver hoodie until Pepper ran out of steam, sniffling.

They landed in the only fly zone in sixty klicks, according to Happy. Fucking Hartford.

Darcy gently pried Pepper's phone free from her death clutch and phoned a rental agency to get a car on the tarmac pronto. She may or may not have used the AmEx fished out of Pepper's purse, but what are company expenditures for? And it certainly damn well did qualify as an emergency. The sedan was waiting as Darcy and Blake got Pepper up and moving after landing, shock gradually wearing off when the fresh air hit her blotchy face.

It was all Darcy, Yvonne, and Blake could do to keep up as Pepper booked it down the stairs, across the tarmac, and into the sedan with superhuman agility for someone in four inch heels. Happy stuck behind to handle the plane and promised to follow as soon as humanly possible. All of that shouted to their retreating backs, Darcy recalled.

"I think Mr. Stark's been teaching her stunt driving," Blake said offhandedly to Darcy as they clutched onto what she fondly dubbed the "OH SHIT" handles in the backseat, Yvonne being the brave soul who didn't have much choice in seating and had lunged into the front as Pepper was squealing off. This train wasn't stopping for nobody.

Pepper was bent over the steering wheel as they practically _flew_ down I-84 towards the state line.

"On the bright side, I think we'll make record time. It's like the Mach Five reincarnated with Pepper as Racer X," Darcy gibed in a shaky voice, but Blake was too busy vomiting out the window to comment or get the reference. Darcy was grateful for light traffic, not a state troopers in sight (probably preoccupied with alien invasions further south), and superior handling skills from Pepper as the speedometer ratcheted over the 120 MPH mark.

Darcy did send up her last prayer to whatever higher power out there to be on the safe side, but total and full disclosure on sins in the face of a possible high speed crash was warranted. A Lewis didn't raise no idiots, as the force of nature that'd birthed Darcy put it so often in those exact words.

* * *

Tony had the gall to text Pepper the location the rest of them were idling at in the aftermath. After ditching the rental, bullying her way through military checkpoints, and shooing Yvonne and Blake off towards Stark Tower, Pepper set off through the wreckage with Darcy tailing. How the woman still managed to do this in pumps, she would never know. But where there was a will there was a way for Pepper Potts, Darcy summed up.

The Lebanese joint would be totally kitschy and atypical of your usual Manhattan ethnic food joint on the go if it hadn't been for the entire storefront being in pieces on the sidewalk. The pair wove their way in. Pepper yelled for a solid five minutes into Tony's face about what Darcy suspected was "the usual" before collapsing against him, beating her balled up fists against his shirt and alternating the kissing/screaming routine with some old fashioned lecturing. Darcy took Tony Stark's vacated seat and shawarma – lamb.

It took her a few minutes to register the faces around the table, all still fixed on Tony and Pepper's exchanged with mixed expressions of shock, apathy, and amusement. The thousand yard stare dude with the massive biceps gazed off into the middle distance while the embodiment of feminine badassery in a formfitting set of body armor sat sentry at his side. One very wild haired gent sporting glasses that screamed "professor with tenure, thank you" with his rumpled clothes and greying hair sat at the end. And…

_Holy fuck to the nth degree, is that Captain America?_

She must've voiced that one. Everyone besides Pepper and Tony (currently occupied in another Pepper tirade while Tony tried his best to bring her back a notch, bless him) zeroed in on her with pinpoint precession that made every hair stand on end.

A door in the back opened after a muffled toilet flush.

"The Lady Darcy!" bellowed a familiar voice before Darcy _and _her chair were lifted into a hug.

"Thor," she wheezed, "good to see you. Mortal ribcage…cracking-"

She was gently set down, Thor coming into her spotty vision field as she regained lung capacity and gave him a pat on the slab of muscle masquerading as his shoulder.

"Apologies – I forget how delicate mortal bones remain in comparison!" Thor laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. She nearly buckled.

"We've spent all day smacking around Chitauri, is what he means." That came from the redheaded chick, her tone as flat as her expression.

"Verily. A fierce battle, to be sure. My Lady Jane is near, I trust?" Thor was scanning the area for any blip of Jane, but he looked about as crestfallen as a kicked puppy when Darcy shook her head in a "no".

"Still in Norway. The powers that be sent her packing a couple of days back. I'm guessing it's all connected…?" she trailed off, looking pointedly around the room and then outside the space at the chaos. A pipeline was split and the street was buckled in places, wreckage strewn everywhere. Car alarms blared intermittently. She thought she saw a flock of pigeons skittering on a crosswalk, but she might've been a bit dazed and mistook them for chickens. Darcy didn't want to even _think_ about the level of damage costs involved in one square city block alone.

"Indeed. The Son of Coul was kind to inform me before he bravely met his end that Jane was sent abroad to protect her from possible involvement. My brother's schemes stretched far, from what we've been able to puzzle out," Thor rumbled, shifting his massive frame around in the chair. He made it look like a full grown adult squeezing into a kid's plastic chair. Darcy inched away on the off chance of the furniture splintering into a billion sharp pieces under Thor's less-than-slight weight.

At the mention of Coulson, the most awkward of awkward silences fell on the table. Even Pepper took a break from screaming at Tony to throw up her hands, storming out of the place to start nailing a detached car door with the tip of a heel.

"Phil and Pep were pretty close," Tony answered their disbelieving looks, scratching at the back of his neck in the typical male gesture of "how do I calm my female" as he ambled out to Pepper.

"Agent Repo? _Dead_?" Darcy's head was spinning in disbelief. She'd figured people like Coulson had at least five forms to file and a public notice to be posted two weeks before the date of their expiration. Apparently not.

"Yes. Dead." The redhead deadpanned, her mouth twitching into a thin line of annoyance. Darcy fixed her face into something more solidly regretful than disbelieving, slumping into the chair.

"As much as I would enjoy a brief respite, I must return to the Man of Fury and begin preparations for Loki's extradition," Thor said, glancing sidelong at Darcy with his best Asgardian "we need to talk" look. She nodded dumbly and followed him out with a two fingered salute to the others. Walking with Thor through a warzone was easy for scrawny mortals – he simply just shoved away debris the size of Humvees with a flick of his arm as they backtracked to what she supposed was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hidey hole.

"My brother did not act alone in his schemes. I worry for his safety as he goes to face the Allfather for his crimes committed on this realm…as well as the mischief he caused while I remained banished. Whatever his reasons, they were influenced by some greater force. Perhaps the one commanding this vast army," Thor kicked the strangest looking humanoid corpse Darcy had seen outside of fiction. She gave it a wide berth as the spastic twitch set in and the armor it sported rattled on the asphalt.

"So sort of forced to invade under duress?" Darcy supplied, struggling to catch up with Thor as he continued the slow march up the block.

"Very possible. I must go plead his case in person, for his is my brother no matter the circumstances. Which is why I intend to return with him instead of tarrying on this realm any longer, as much as I would like." Thor grinned back at her.

"Oh, I _bet_," Darcy crowed, glad to find a bit of humor in Thor's totally bawdy but totally lovesick attitude towards her boss. They came to a sleek skyscraper that looked a little worse for wear but remained blanketed in military personnel and the telltale black suits of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Thor breezed them through checkpoints. She'd give him credit – he was pretty officious when it boiled down to it. They were on the elevator to the lower holding areas when he looked at Darcy and asked, "Would you be opposed to waiting while I check on my brother's accommodations?"

"Not at all, big guy. I'll tag along if it's not completely restricted for lackeys."

If it was, Thor didn't pay the rules any mind. The "accommodations" was a modified, overblown glass cube bare of anything but a chair. It sat against a back wall in a cavernous hangar, rows of tech set up and a massive amount of people scurrying around. Thor excused himself as soon as they'd crossed over the area to the cube, Loki sitting far back in the cell against the wall.

Her first estimation of the man and the mystery weren't flattering. He was all lean muscle and the dual opposite to Thor's golden boy image, dark haired and sallow. He was far too occupied with the ground to take notice of the activity outside his cell, it seemed.

An idea popped into her head while Thor talked with a few scientific types off to the side, brow furrowed.

Darcy edged over to retrieve a laptop from an abandoned workbench down the way, booting it up and sidling back near the containment cell despite the dirty looks she was getting from the agents. Skype was downloaded in a jiff and she had it ringing on Jane's number for a solid minute until Jane's frantic face filled the screen.

"Darcy?! I've been trying your phone for hours! Did you see the news? He's _back_ and the flux from our quadrant is going absolutely crazy with energy feeds," she gesticulated wildly with the words up until Darcy hauled Thor in front of the laptop after setting it down on a nearby table.

"Magic mirror. Talk." That was her best Midgardian to Asgardian translation of modern tech for Thor at the moment. The look on both their faces was worth the effort.

"JANE!" Thor shouted. Darcy could feel the vibrations from his voice beneath her damn boots. She left them to their relative privacy and edged around the room, trying her damn best to pick a spot on the wall and just stare at it. The agents were preoccupied, Loki was brooding, and she was so out of place that it was surreally funny. A laugh bubbled up before she could stop it.

"Something amuses you?" croaked Loki. He was a good five feet away and muffled by a wall of glass – runes of some kind coating the pane. Whatever hocus pocus they were pinning him up with seemed to be holding, so Darcy worked up the gumption to move closer. Agents shot her more dirty looks, but she pointed to Thor and locked her hands neatly behind her back.

"Just that I didn't expect to end up here when I woke up this morning. And that it's all sort of surreal and I'm probably just having a very trippy dream sequence," she explained. He looked like shit warmed over. Bruised, bloody, dusty – you name it. His armor was stripped down to his undergarments, similar to the stuff Thor was in after he'd gotten dumped on Earth. In essence, not a god. He made a "tch" sound in reply.

She didn't know whether the petulant child act was genuine or if it was the only reaction he had in his emotional range at the moment.

"You know, you're not the first kid that's ever had issues with their parents. Probably not the last. And you'd probably be dead now if it weren't for them and Thor sticking their collective necks out for your sake." It sounded a bit snippy and preachy coming out of her, but whatever. His kill count was in the triple digits. Let the shaming begin.

Instead of a biting remark worthy of going down in the history of snarkiness, Loki bent his head like a kicked dog. His reply was almost inaudible.

"It would be better for them if I were dead."

Ah, fuck. Kicked puppy look was a shared trait with Thor and his younger brother. Darcy did the first advisable thing to do in these situations and shut her mouth, staring fixedly at the wall he was so fascinated with.

Thor escorted her out after he and Jane had their exchange, promises to visit and whatnot made – Thor was apparently taking Loki's trouble causing ass back to Asgard first thing in the morning. But he would return, as he assured both Jane and Darcy.

As the lift doors closed on the scene in the containment room, Darcy caught sight of Loki's ashen expression. She certainly didn't pity him. But she lifted a hand and gave him a thumbs up all the same. The gesture simply seemed to bring him out of his shell-shocked state into one of bemused scorn, but it was a change all the same.


	2. Degradation

_I own nothing - all rights to their respective owners._

**Degradation **

_The universe is comprised of billions upon billions of galaxies._

Darcy still didn't understand why Asgardians with their godly pro parenting chose Earth time and again as the intergalactic timeout corner and why the pooled might of the universal villain rejects chose to terrorize _her _galaxy out of all the billions of others. She was starting to get pissed off on the collective behalf of all mankind. Certainly didn't want prisons dumping convicted serial murderers and/or belligerent assholes (no judgment against Thor pre-epiphany) off in our front lawn to _find _themselves and have a moment of self-realization, did we? Darcy didn't think so.

The day started off fairly normal. It'd been six months since the Chitauri invasion was totaled by the team and the Asgardian brotherly lovefest mamboed itself _back_ to Asgard with the Tesseract. All was well save for the nuisance of the "new kid on the block" villain syndicate known as A.I.M. They were enough of a problem to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers Initiative busy.

"Which self-respecting villain conglomerate names themselves with the same initials as the AOL instant messenger?" Pepper asked the triad of women including herself that early morning, glancing up from her tablet. Jane was muttering to herself as she pursued her tablet. She'd gotten even more spacey (to pun or not to pun, that is the question) during her time in the wilds of Norway, but Stark had snatched her out of her _SCIENCE _trance and almost forcibly transported her back to New York for more _SCIENCE_.

"You've got evil," Darcy shot over the top of her screen, the tone as chiming and omnipotent sounding as the AOL voice. Jane and Pepper both took a minute to crack up. JARVIS even had a "Very Quaint, Miss Lewis" waiting for her when she went back into the privacy of her apartment to finish dressing for the day. Pepper had the ritual of stopping in early before the rest of mankind had even hit the collective snooze button. Jane and Darcy would trudge to Jane's kitchen in their mutual state of undress, scratching sleep out of their eyes as the coffee machine spat out their usual fare.

Thor's snores were obnoxiously loud through the closed bedroom door in Jane's place. He didn't even _use _his floor save for the closet space. A month after Darcy's arrival in New York, Thor had returned to Earth through some mysterious galactic byway Odin had split open and hadn't been back to Asgard since. The Jane/Thor courtship was obnoxiously adorable to watch as the Stark Tower underwent repairs and modifications with the rest of Midtown Manhattan, a Quinjet hanger and a floor for every Avenger being added to the mix.

Jane and Darcy had claimed the seventieth floor of the tower and split it in half – a sweet deal negotiated in both their hiring contracts. Darcy was just happy for such simple pleasures as a _paycheck_ and a _room _and _job security_, let alone the sprawling space she now had to call her own and the steadily increasing number of digits in her emaciated bank account. Jane insisted that they push the envelope a bit.

"Am I actually _doing_ what women are telling me to do? Wish granted." Tony Stark asked and answered himself after they'd verified and given the go ahead for their hiring contracts to be signed. He'd been greasy from his garage, juggling about five holograms midair before pulling up the translucent panes with both her and Jane's contracts. He signed off with the tip of his oil stained finger, balling both up to send the digitized mess soaring into the inbox slot that just materialized in thin air over Jane's head in a blaze of holographic glory.

Darcy wouldn't lie. She'd nearly freaked when she found her own apartment and _every room_ in Stark Tower had the same three dimensional, interactive projection capabilities for the computers. JARVIS was good people as far as sentient technology went. While she was bunking with Jane during their floor's remodeling stage, the AI had "introduced" himself to her mid smoothie sip in Jane's kitchen. Darcy stared cross-eyed at the ceiling figuring things out before striking up a conversation with him, casually referring to him as the Heuristically ALgorithmic computer with a sibilant emphasis on the first few letters of the words. What was funny was that he _got_ her brand of humor and responded in kind, chuckling dryly before sallying into his main point.

"As you say, Miss Lewis. I am merely here to assist. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do," JARVIS hummed from overhead in that distinctly polite monotone.

Darcy had lost it. Smoothie of the frozen mango variant spewed out of both nostrils as she choked on both the humor and horror of having a fully sentient AI do a frighteningly good impersonation of HAL 9000. It was then that she decided to never, _ever_ second guess or piss off JARVIS.

Besides JARVIS, a more tangible gizmo called their floor its home. A rounded metal disc with articulated levers and precise digits for limbs that fucking _hovered_. It scuttled around both her and Jane's apartments on the reg. It cooked. It cleaned. It did laundry. Darcy swore up and down its beady little LED lights were focused on the late night rerun of _The Golden Girls_ when she walked into the kitchen on a snack run last week. The wall unit had mysteriously cut off and the disc had gone into standby mode quicker than a teenager could tab out of porn to some unassuming webpage.

Which was fucking fast. It was like a tech savvy Disney movie in the tower, and Tony Stark was basically the baby daddy to all machines that called themselves semi sentient.

They'd dubbed the scuttle disc Bea Arthur to honor its taste in sitcoms. BA for short.

Steve completely missed the reference the first time he'd visited their floor and had been introduced to BA. He was subsequently hauled by Darcy into what turned out to be the longest running marathon of _The Golden Girls _ever screened. They did not emerge for two days. When he did escape her televised clutches, Steve looked bemused, shocked, and above all bamboozled by the idea that those "witty old dames" probably graduated high school a few years behind him.

That was the day Darcy taught BA to fistbump in a victorious fashion.

Back to the whole galaxies tangent, she was having a usual day after the morning routine roving the lower bowels of the tower's H.R. department looking for weak prey, micromanaging expense reports from Aeronautics on the tablet, and shoving a donut down her throat with some ungodly loud moans about the crème filling. The new people had learned not to stare at her.

She was best classified as a probationary Pepper clone, managerial in her role and very much "just learning" before she was allowed to cut her teeth on anything serious. So far it was working out quite well. The matte finish on the "Darcy Lewis" emblazoned against her Stark issued black AmEx still gave her chills. Not to mention the charge card was _heavy_ and seriously badass looking. She still let Pepper dress her to some extent. After a few months in heels she was looking less like stilt legged Bambi in nylons and more like confident businesswoman.

The last roving complete, Darcy did a quick check of her reflection in the burnished steel of the wall to make sure donut icing wasn't slathered over her face before she keyed in the code and clutched onto the elevator's railing for dear life as it did a sharp, sudden acceleration towards the lower levels of R&D at the top of the tower. Two security checkpoints later and a _stinging _retinal scan had her convinced that caution was overkill, but Tony's whole paranoia over letting a _liberal arts major_ around his workspace remained staunchly in place.

_SCIENCE_ was in progress. Said so in that exact phrasing on the glass door separating the unwashed masses from the higher life forms of the PhDs behind it. Darcy glued her face to it and started the incessant tapping with the varnished tips of her fingernails until a lackey (lab assistant) came to let her in.

"I bring you company of the utmost amiable nature!" Darcy boomed in her best Asgardian impression, startling Jane from her station enough to make the tiny woman tug up her goggles.

"Darcy! Put on the eyewear," she snapped, motioning towards a rack of protective glasses. Darcy slid them on and pinned them there with a finger over her own glasses, scraping over to the gaggle of lab coats all gathered 'round ye ole laser canon like kids to a Christmas tree. Or crack addicts to the local dealer – pick the metaphor out. Darcy didn't major in English, Thor damn it.

What was getting divided and _split_ by atom-fine laser procession this time looked to be like some lump of liquid metal.

"Looks like the stuff the bad guy from _Terminator 2 _was made of," she commented offhandedly to Tony, apparently manning the controls to this sucker. He gave less of a fuck about "serious face science" than her, which was impressive.

"Seriously. Like the semi-sentient byproduct of some alien, semi-mechanized race's nightly emissions." Tony always had the _right _thing to say about a situation. Darcy cackled.

Whatever reaction they were looking for out of the hovering ball of goo came when the ultraviolet glow at the core peaked into a very ion blue kind of haze, those geeks assembled from all scientific disciplines both great and completely non-applicable to the situation (political science, damn it) ooh'd and ah'd. Bruce was doing the "pin glasses over normal glasses" motion with her when he showed up at her elbow, mirroring her grin.

"Totally epic. I think Jane's about to either orgasm or have a conniption over there." Darcy pointed. Jane was practically screaming her dictation to her broken-in lab tech over the whirr of the laser, gesticulating wildly and doing the rain dance of scientific knowledge where her tiny feet would rap out a rhythm on the tile like she was doing an Irish reel.

"That's the element that's going to sustain propulsion for _our_ Bifrost. I think she's got allowance to be a little excited," Bruce commented with humor heavy in his voice. Darcy elbowed the scientist – all part of the program of "get over tiptoeing around Banner" routine Tony had enacted for everyone months ago.

"Call it what you will. Scientific breakthrough, pinnacle of success. All I see is her foaming at the mouth about Thor finally being able to stop moping and juggle whole princely routine _without_ either of them doing a dry spell," Darcy teased.

Bruce actually blushed on that one, Tony's cackle borderline sinister as he occupied himself with bringing back the laser to a more manageable focus. Tony wielding a laser that could split the room into two neatly cauterized halves unsettled her, so Darcy retreated to the sanctuary of Jane's own planetarium cum office (another hiring contract stipulation, that brilliant woman) and the more comfortable class of office lounging furniture located therein. Jane had an office suite to begin with, but like Bruce and Tony moved all her shit _into_ the workspace.

The curved dome of the roof was digitalized and JARVIS compatible, glassy in appearance. Tony Stark's brand of architecture and invention didn't allow for star projectors, so the entire array was like an integrated Chronos star projector on crack. It was a wonder Jane ever came out – the system had live hookups to most major observatories and satellites. Along with a very illegal override function for their telescopic equipment that Tony had gifted the astrophysicist with. Darcy had an inkling that Tony was secretly the patron saint of hackers and/or Anonymous, but came up with no evidence to support that crackpot theory.

Tony just smiled when she asked. The line between cyber-criminal and cyber-activist was a thin one with someone whose technological genius rivaled Tesla and Da Vinci combined.

The planetarium was echoing and cool, so Darcy parked herself in Jane's chair and twirled around. It was going to be a bit of a wait before the scientist emerged, but Darcy was assured that even geniuses needed more than three day old, stale Pop-Tarts to sustain them. Dinner was at six and Darcy was _not _nibbling on a wilted salad after the combined appetites of Thor and Steve decimated the table.

She'd give Jane an hour before forcible coercion methods were employed via Tony or Bruce. They weren't above wheeling Jane out of the lab on a rolling chair so she wouldn't pass out on the workbench running on three days of wakefulness and only coffee since yesterday _again_.

The view on the planetarium's curved dome right now was zoned in on a faint cluster of stars. Darcy vaguely recognized them as Jane's hypothesized galaxy that fit Thor's own surprisingly astute calculations. If that faint pinprick of lights was the "Realm Eternal" as Thor called it, Darcy would be thoroughly surprised. But she wasn't the astrophysicist in the equation. It seemed so unlikely that something so _small_ could be so monumentally big or even reachable by her race's tech. And vice versa. This was shaping up into a reality, though. A very real one transpiring in the massive labs right outside the door.

The hour had come to herd all the cats out of the lab.

"Quitting time! Drop your science," she bossed at Jane, Bruce voluntarily hanging up his coat while Tony seemed to have already retreated from the floor to parts unknown. Jane grunted in annoyance and kept fiddling with equipment until Darcy had the back of the chair in hand, wheeling her off with a bemused Bruce grinning at the noise of Jane's very loud protests.

* * *

"Is he ever going to get that filled in?" Darcy asked, skirting around the distinctly man-sized depression in Tony's floor. Jane had wheeled her office chair off to the dining room table next to Thor, rage momentarily quelled by the sight of hot food that didn't come from cellophane wrappers and the godly rear seated next to it all. Temptation at its best.

Bruce's look was borderline nostalgic. "I don't…recall much when the Other Guy takes the lead. But I do remember _that_." He pointed with emphasis to the wrecked floor and the deep impressions.

"And to answer your question – no. I'm not filling that in, Dee Dee. I like walking out of my bedroom every once in a while, surveying the majestic skyline, and then surveying the majestic hole in the ground Bruce made. Hulk has a promising career in demolition," Tony called from the table, too busy stuffing his face with Italian food to wave them over. The occasion? Pepper had a pasta arm installed in their chrome and digitalized monstrosity of a kitchen and had pressganged her fiancé into cooking. The veal was tender, the gremolada was borderline sinful – it was downright superhuman how Tony could cook decent Italian. That last omelet he'd left covered on Pepper's desk a few months back looked nuked. Possibly capable of movement, too. Tony yelped after his partner in crime dug a clean fork into his shoulder for Darcy's less than appropriate nickname. She still hadn't broken him out of it.

Phil Coulson made some noncommittal noises from his end of the table, Steve busy with his _fourth_ helping. Agent Repo was still in physical therapy and probably would never get rid of the limp, but he was finally off light duty and back in the field. Clint and Nat were on some Stark funded contracting job in Afghanistan and wouldn't be back until the holidays. The betting pool on "BlackHawk Went Down" had doubled – all bets were on when those two had to share a shitty room on some shitty compound in the middle of Kandahar.

Darcy, Pepper, Phil, and of course Jane would get a cut of the winnings if the "they are totally fucking" vibe had graduated to PDA by the time the two stoic assassins got back on Thanksgiving. The rest of the Avengers gambled on the switch happening _after_ Clint hauled Nat to the Rockies for their long overdue vacation in December.

Darcy had brought up the stuffed capers and prosciutto to the dinner. Or what was left of them. Thor apparently was a growing boy after a few millennia. Jane, to her credit, did attempt to slap his fingers away from snatching the last few.

The longer the dinner went on, the more her thoughts were preoccupied with the impression Loki's body had made after Hulk decided to use him like a sledgehammer. She'd seen the video feed. Zero sympathy still. But something deeper was _irking_ her that night.

"Vino is getting to my head. I'm gonna pack it up, kiddos," Darcy murmured, rising from the table as all assembled waved a goodbye. Goodnights were exchanged, and she thanked a smug Tony for the meal before she quit the floor for her own apartment.

* * *

Dreaming came natural to Darcy. She enjoyed sleep probably more than any other human on Earth. Eight o'clock wakeup was bordering on a mortal sin these days, but adulthood had forced her into a new routine where she would be in bed by nine and be awake by six to start the day.

The dream tonight, however, differed vastly from the banal shit she was used to her brain screening. She was enjoying the detached observations of this golden hall illuminated in a shimmering cast as water danced under her fingertips. It wasn't until the wetness and reality of the water registering on very _real_ nerve endings that Darcy realized it was more than dreaming she was doing.

"You are in Fensalir, child. Do not fret." The voice was chiming, coming from every angle until the hazy quality to the not-dream lifted and Darcy found her feet on solid stone. A woman sat by her perch on the lip of the fountain with needle and thread in hand, her smile gently assuring. Darcy didn't quell the initial urge to pinch herself awake, but it seemed her motor skills had checked out.

"Hi?" Darcy said tentatively, completely out of her element in every way. The woman's smile turned encouraging.

"I have visited the dreams of Jane Foster before. The paths to your own mind were not hard to trace. Both my sons have shared words with you, and one loves your compatriot immeasurably. I am called Frigga."

Well, that name clicked into place this whole sequence of strange events transpiring during her REM cycle.

"Jane hasn't mentioned any future mother-in-law visits via dreams," Darcy said, her voice strangled. This was far above both her pay grade and insurance plan. She needed a shrink or very strong sleeping pills if this was the result of overworking herself – dreaming up alien women busy with their piecework.

"She is preoccupied. Or convinced that it is simply dreaming. Nothing more," Frigga murmured, patiently threading the golden length of a needle through the fabric in her hands. It had an iridescent glow like the raiment Frigga was sporting, otherworldly and capable of making Darcy feel like the intruding, smudgy stain fouling up the terrace. Mountains stretched off into the distance, stars vaulted overhead and a horizon that seemed to stretch on for ages spanning over the golden city below.

"Figures. I don't think Jane's into talking about her dreams to _anyone_, come to think of it. I'm shocked she even sleeps enough to dream and let you dial into her brain," Darcy gibed. Frigga merely smiled, placid and serene as she discarded her sewing. She dwarfed Darcy by a foot, stately in her jeweled gown of gold and just only touched by time. Wrinkles here and there, hints of grey in the shining mass of auburn caught into braids and twists. All around lovely lady.

Darcy didn't quite know where the fuck the spinning wheel had been hiding until it appeared next to her, the gleaming tip of the spindle giving her a bit of nostalgia for Grimm fairytales. Her mother had been a fan and never failed to spin a few of her own versions of the stories when Darcy was a difficult kid at bedtime.

Frigga took long enough to speak, time stretching as thin as the knotted wool she worked between her worn fingers. "I will cut to the quick of the matter, then. I am gifted with foresight and prophecy by the higher powers. I've looked towards your dreams and thoughts and seen a girl preoccupied with the notion that change is possible for my son if he would only _try_ to accept himself. Accept Thor's love – the love I bear for him, the love the Allfather has borne for him since Loki was but a babe in arms."

"Preoccupied?" Darcy frowned.

"Perhaps not the best phrasing. You are…the only mortal who is possessed by the thoughts and sentiments I find myself indulging in more oft than not." Frigga's admission came as a surprise, but the goddess kept carding the wool in her lap until it was glossy fine wisps of fiber. Her motions were deft and sure, an economy of motion as she set a slipper to the treadle and the shining wheel began to spin. Darcy didn't know much about Thor's stepmother, but whatever he'd said in the many conversations they'd had over the year made Frigga out to be a mix of saint and sweetheart.

And that she was very, very fiercely protective of those she loved when it boiled down to it. Frigga shot her a look, her slim fingers pinching the wispy strand as it thinned and corded into long lengths of thread. "Do not sit idly by. Come." Darcy came at the beckoning gesture, not about to say "no" to someone capable of probably cursing her into the next dimension. Frigga showed her with a great measure of patience how to run the long strands into a good width that would not be too thin or thick for the spinning, setting the heavy weight of the distaff down in Darcy's lap with a mound of fleecy wool. It took a few tries, some sections breaking as the wheel thinned it into thread or catching on a too thick knot, but they had a nice rhythm going after a while that had both of them mellowing out.

They continued in silence that stretched into what felt like hours for Darcy.

"Spinning keeps my mind off things," Frigga explained, her fingers lifting to touch the growing wealth of silvered string coiling on the spindle, "because it is a great effort of many. The flocks are gathered, sheered, and the raw fiber is set to boil in great vats in the hall of the weavers. Entire guilds are built around the trade. You scour the wool, comb so _carefully_ until nothing remains but the finest, longest and most lovely strands for spinning. But as you saw, some thread proves too sturdy to be bent into the shape the wheel desires. Or thin enough that the pull and force of the wheel breaks it into fragmented chaos."

"I feel like you've just dropped some blatantly obvious advice on me. But it's flying over my head at the moment," Darcy admitted, scurrying to keep up with the goddess. Her foot tapped out a quicker rhythm on the treadle, a low hum of movement thrumming in the air as the wheel blurred into a spin of silver. Darcy stared transfixed, the distance of dreams sharpening into something much keener. The images of two boys – a one-eyed man dandling a gurgling baby on a knee while a towheaded infant hung onto the ends of his beard. Two children – one dark and the other golden – at play in a vast field with sticks for swords. A young but recognizable Loki buried behind piles of books. Loki enthroned. Loki chained. Loki pinned under the body of some shadowy opposite with glinting teeth and purpled skin. A somber room draped in black with shadows for figures, a body lain out in state and arrayed in gold as Frigga wept.

"Stop. Stop! I get it," Darcy had shouted. The images halted and she was sitting solid and shaking on the stone bench once more, Frigga's gaze fixed on her. "Alright, with all respects to your highness – I'm not digging this whole Inception method of explaining things. What's the catch?"

"My son joins his brother on Midgard. You fulfill the task I set myself to when I first took Loki in hand from Odin. He is just a boy. So very young. While the Allfather may have had ulterior motives in making him our blood son all those years ago, our feelings shall never change. Because we know that he is the boy that was never given ground to be equal to his brother due to his true heritage and the hate fostered towards the_Jötunn. We _Aesir are distanced from a good opinion of the race after a long spanned rivalry – many wars. It seems the Allfather and I fell short of raising Loki to bear no troubles over his true nature," she halted, overcome with some thought as the wheel spun to a stuttering halt and the thread ran short. "I fear that this is a cycle that may never delineate. Not without drastic measures taken. Loki has fallen under the influence of a great evil that may not be averted to toil elsewhere in our universe. This must change if your kind and mine are to survive."

Darcy's voice failed her until she got her bearings. "So you want me to take him? Normal mortal? Any idea how our justice system works? He's supposed to serve out his punishment here, like Thor said. Few hundred or so years in a cramped cell in your penal system. Sound familiar?"

"That is not his punishment," Frigga muttered. She snapped a thread between her fingers, and the scene shifted into darkness only to reemerge in a place that Darcy wouldn't ever quite forget until the end of her days.

* * *

Time had a mercurial quality about it in the caverns below the great realm. The vaulted halls themselves had a charmingly otherworldly quality compared to the ordered, smooth edged structures aboveground. Here the organic remained, crystal slabs bracing the planes to create a vast in-between.

One moment his mother was present, bent over his form as she wept and tried to loosen the chains binding him. He longed to tell her to stop – stop trying, stop caring. What have I ever done to make you _care_, mother?

But the thread she'd spun herself had bound him in the physical sense.

"_Mother, what manner of string is this?" he asks, the spool of thread locked in one of her prismatic cupboards. Of all the great halls in Asgard, Fensalir was his favorite. Here was where the sorcerers and clever scholars mingle with the ladies his mother favors, waterways and burbling fountains strewn in every corner or splitting every corridor. They don't mind that he is so inquisitive, and answered all the questions he can pose to them. _

_They don't find his ineptitude with sword and shield funny or pitiable. Piling up the young prince with scrolls and books, they test his knowledge and sharpen his mind into something frighteningly intelligent in even his formative years. It is in Fensalir where he first learns to lie so sweetly – father says that women made the best of them, and the ladies in Frigga's company have a honed skill for it._

_It surprises him that mother is so angry when she yanks him by the collar. Away from the opening cabinet his gifts have unlocked, batting away the spool of spun metal. _

"_Dangerous, Loki. It is a dangerous metal – swear to me that you will never go prying into that cupboard again."_

"_I swear it," he says, sobered by the angry tears in Frigga's eyes before she draws him in for a tight hug. She is always so warm and clean, smelling of green things and spun string. Loki tucks his head into the crook of her neck as he was prone to do, promising that he will never forsake her trust. _

_He did not lie._

Now the Aesir would laugh to see the great Silver Tongue so silent. A small grace was that the Allfather had halted the severity of his punishment short of public humiliation. He rendered his judgment and the execution of his punishment in the silence of these caverns, Thor shoved back towards the Earth with the assurance that Loki lived and the judgment was fair. Odin was perhaps a greater liar than even Loki.

The passage of time went by unmarked save for the occurrence of one visit from his mother to his own personal hell. Another attended her – barely a woman grown.

The girl was not one of his mother's own, but mortal. Familiar. But fleetingly so. Her dark hair melded from flaxen to brown and back again, eyes strikingly grey one moment and a calm blue the next. The first passing of this particular visit came in snippets to him – the girl screaming at the sight lain before her, his mother's passive resistance to her shouting, a vessel for the venom conjured. Soon the visits between his mother and this girl fractured to where his mother would come to give him succor, patiently holding the amphora above to catch the serpent's venom before the vessel brimmed. The pain of the venom was as tremendous as the last time he'd been bound and subjected to it. Frigga would leave, the pain would resume, and then he'd come swimming back from the edge of his madness to surface once more – the mortal's face would be hovering over him, the fluted neck of the amphora in hand.

Part of him wondered why this mortal cared to stand there for hours on end, biting at her lip and balancing the vessel over him with such articulated care before dumping it out quick enough to catch the next drop. Sometimes she was not clever and quick enough in movement – a drop would burn through his skin and he would thrash, the whole cavern reverberating with the screams and his flailing. But she persisted. As did the lapses in her appearance. Gold to brown, grey to blue – slim to buxom and back again. Loki fancied he had reached the bottom of his own madness, staring out of the darkness at the faces most familiar to him before that was snatched away. A mortal face remained.

"Sigyn," he wanted to say, but the thread trapped the sound and his tongue remained flat and dry on the roof of his mouth. The chains binding him clinked, metal of the same nature as the metal that silenced him. His magic was a feeble memory – barely a clinging thought on the periphery. He kenned that Odin had it locked deep within. Not entirely absent.

How he longed for death.

* * *

After a month of this whole "cooperate or go wacko" dream sequence Frigga paused her mind on, in which Darcy valiantly tried to keep herself awake for days via triple fraps and energy drinks practically intravenously pumped into her rather than go back into that hellhole, Darcy's resolve against Frigga's scheme broke.

That night she laid down, passed out, and found herself crouched by the hunched, vulnerable form shaking naked on the earthen floor. He'd thrashed rocks about and the long line of his spine seemed almost skeletal in the low, unnatural light the crystals gave off.

Darcy turned him gently as possible, reaching for the shards of glassy stone. Loki's eyes seemed almost relieved at the sight of her raising the jagged edge above him – vaguely suicidal? Probably. She would be after seven months of this bullshit. Odin wasn't winning any "Dad of the Year" awards this millennium. But Frigga was doing what she could, considering the circumstances. Darcy still resented it.

But instead of ending it cleanly like any sane human would in these circumstances, considering the guy _had _killed enough to earn him a one way ticket to Death Row if he were human, Darcy began to work the wiry stiches sewn through his skin and sealing his mouth shut with one handed. The other ached with the strain as it caught the venom in the vase.

_This'd better be worth it._

* * *

**Notes**

**Stark Tower**, or Avengers Tower, is ninety-three stories (1138'), making it the third tallest tower in the fictional New York skyline behind the One World Trade Center (after it topped out in August 2012) and the Empire State Building; it is flanked by two smaller buildings in the Marvel 'verse. Stark Industries subsidiaries and nonprofits take up most of the lower floors. Tony and Pepper do indeed give every Avenger a floor to themselves, add a Quinjet hanger, and convert the top three floors into the headquarters for the team.

**Fensalir**, also known as the "Fen Hall" in Old Norse, is the domain of Frigg (anglicized as Frigga). It is mentioned in the _Poetic Edda_ poem _Völuspá _and has a strong connection to water.

**Spinning lore** is mainly associated with Frigga, and the asterism known as Orion's Belt was known as "Frigg's Distaff/spinning wheel" (_Friggerock_) or "Freyja's Distaff" (_Frejerock_).

Yours Hopefully here with a question to pose! Sigyn does exist in the Marvel 'verse as a character and in Norse mythology and as the wife of Loki, and I was wondering what everyone's opinion was on how she should be integrated into the story.

**Should Sigyn be a separate character that left Loki after he revealed himself to not be her true love Theoric but remained faithful to him as a friend by easing his pain the last time Loki fucked up and earned the snake venom drip? **Go look up the wonderful artwork on that famous scene, I say!

**Or should Sigyn instead be Darcy in some plot twist? Via Frigga's prophetic manipulations where she weaves the story of a savior for Loki during his prior captivity in the form of an ideal woman for him.**


End file.
